Photo class helps Katrina victim reassemble her life, one image at a time

When Audrey Maduell returned home to the Lakeview section of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, she returned to find most of her family's possessions ruined by the toxic floodwaters that inundated the city.

"When I saw it, it broke my heart," Maduell said of her home of more than 50 years. A tree had fallen into their home. "We sobbed. The kids wouldn't let us out of the car."

For Maduell, like many others, the most heartbreaking casualties of the storm were the very thing that she could never replace: her photographs.

Carolyn Coffey, like many other Texans, was deeply touched by the heartbreaking images of devastation pouring in from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Coffey, a professor of photography at Austin Community College's Photographic Technology Program, wanted to help those displaced by the storm. After taking in a family of five evacuees, Coffey heard time and time again that their most treasured possessions - the things they wish they could have saved - were their family photo albums. Perhaps through divine intervention, Coffey, who has extensive experience as a freelance photographer and specializes in photo retouching and restoration, realized a way to put her life's work into action, helping victims of Katrina to reassemble their lives, one image at a time.

Coffey was teaching a Photo Retouching and Restoration class at the Northridge campus when Katrina made landfall. The class had been having trouble finding enough old photos for the class's retouching projects. As fate would have it, thousands of New Orleanians, many of whom had lost all of their worldly possessions, were suddenly in need of their services.

Coffey and her class volunteered their efforts to a group coordinating a photo retouching and restoration project for those who had lost their collections in Hurricane Katrina. After completing and returning the restored photos, they were never to hear from the group again. Left cold by the experience, Coffey and her class decided to become more personally involved, working directly with people who had lost their treasured photo collections.

Coffey sent out e-mails, searching for a family who had relocated to Austin. The first response came from the family of Audrey Maduell, telling of the devastating losses that they and many of their neighbors had suffered.

.

Known by the stage name, "Azar: Flaming goddess of love, light and fire," Maduell, once a celebrated dancer, had accumulated an irreplaceable portfolio of images depicting her in fabulous, bejeweled costumes worn during the glamorous heyday of the World War II-era theater. Maduell kept the pictures in her garage, taking them out now and then to reminisce about her days on Broadway.

After Katrina cut her swath of destruction through the city of New Orleans, Maduell's photos were left to ruin, sitting in 9 feet of salty floodwaters for over two weeks. Mold had grown over the portraits, leaving the Broadway chanteuse with only memories.

A lifelong resident of Lakeview, a neighborhood among the hardest hit by Katrina, Maduell's talent was discovered when she was a girl at neighborhood dance lessons. An agent spotted her talent and recommended she join an elite dance class and, as they say, a star was born. Maduell went on to perform in Andrews Sisters-style song and dance numbers at United Service Organization, or USO, shows held for servicemen during World War II.

"A girl in those days never traveled alone," Maduell said, so, chaperone in tow, she headed off to the work the so-called "Borscht Belt" circuit in upstate New York's Catskills Mountain resorts, popular with vacationing New Yorkers. Notorious for its rigorous schedules, not-so-great pay and living conditions that could be described as austere at best, Maduell would then make what would be a pivotal moment in her career: she moved to the Big Apple.

"Azar" went on to marry the man of her dreams, start her own dance studio, Our Lady of Grace Dance Studio in New Orleans and raise two sons and three daughters, two of who would become successful dancers themselves, in their Lakeview home.

Coffey invited Maduell to speak and bring her collection of images to her class at ACC's Northridge campus. Maduell recounted her lifetime of experiences before the class, telling stories of her days in the Big Apple and the New Orleans of old; some happy, some sad. There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

When Maduell showed the once-immaculate collection to the class, the photos were still wet with floodwater. The smell of ammonia permeated the room. The class had their work cut out for them.

"It's touching to see someone cry like that about their loss…to see someone lose all their memories, it's pretty rough," said Andrew Cameron, a graphic design student at ACC. He said he gained immense personal satisfaction and hands-on experience from working on the semester-long restoration project.

The retouching and restoration of damaged photographs uses a blend of digital technology and more traditional techniques like airbrushing. Retouching and restoring a portfolio of Maduell's size can run as high as $15,000 at a professional studio; Coffey and her class offered to do it for free. After months of painstakingly meticulous work, the class used their talents and equipment to restore the photos to near-perfect condition.

"I feel very privileged that they would do this for us," said Maduell of the class's restoration project. She said that the kindness shown to her and her family by the students and faculty at Austin Community College was inspiring.

The class plans to present Maduell with a book of her restored images at the opening of the Photographic Technology Department's fall semester student photo show, held Dec. 13 on ACC's Northridge campus in room 3102. For additional information, please call 512-223-4707.